A ‘proper’ black mass: the rhetorical struggle over a deviant ritual

ABSTRACT

This article considers the rhetorical paradoxes surrounding The Satanic Temple (TST) and its interpretation of ‘black mass’ rituals. TST’s conservative critics have framed the movement as part of an ancient tradition of Satanism while also claiming that its members are not Satanists at all but merely ‘trolls’ seeking to upset Christians. Catholic critics vehemently opposed TST’s attempt to give a public performance of the black mass, but also accused TST of performing the black mass ‘incorrectly’ when TST explained it would not abuse a consecrated host. This article seeks to interpret these paradoxical responses by framing the black mass as a Christian discourse that TST has knowingly attempted to appropriate and repurpose. Drawing on David Frankfurter’s theory of ‘rituals of inversion’, it argues that stories of black masses function to support certain Christian worldviews and that these worldviews are potentially weakened when their imagined inverted counterparts are appropriated. Thus, what is really at stake in debates surrounding TST’s status as a Satanist movement is who can define an important site of discursive power within the Christian imaginaire.

KEYWORDS:

• Satanism
• Catholicism
• ritual
• hate speech

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 At one end of this historiographical debate, Asbjørn Dyrendal, James R. Lewis, and Jesper A. Petersen argue that it is “most productive to see Satanism as invented in the late 1960s and early 1970s from scattered sources (bricolage)” (Dyrendal, Lewis, and Petersen 2016, 3). On the opposite end, Massimo Introvigne refers to “the affair of the poisons” (1677–1682) as the “first incarnation” of modern Satanism (Introvigne 2006, 1035). This was an episode when French fortune-teller Catherine La Voisin devised a black mass ceremony at the request of her clients who hoped to win money, love, and other favors from the devil. Introvigne suggests that, despite moral panics inspired by such figures as journalist Léo Taxil and novelist Joris-Karl Huysmans, there were really small groups of Satanists in France and Belgium by the end of the nineteenth century. Van Luijk dissents from this position, noting that there is little evidence to confirm the existence of such groups (van Luijk 2016, 281). However, both van Luijk (2016, 286) and Introvigne (2016, 227) agree that certain marginal figures at the end of the nineteenth century, such as Danish Freemason Carl William Hansen (1872–1936), can be regarded as Satanists. Better known by his pen name Ben Kadosh, Hansen published a pamphlet proposing the creation of a Masonic Luciferian organization and listed his religion as ‘Luciferian’ in the Danish census of 1906 (Faxneld 2011).

2 I visited TST’s headquarters during 24–25 November 2017.

3 For a critical analysis of the ‘Good News Club’, see Stewart 2017.

4 The idea of blaspheming Christian symbols as a form of therapy is not unique to Satanism. For example, Sangharakshita (née Dennis Lingwood) of the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order prescribed what he called ‘therapeutic blasphemy’ to his followers, claiming it was necessary for ex-Christians to reject Christianity on a profound emotional level in order fully to develop their potential (Sangharakshita 1978, 9).

5 I did not witness this ritual. However, TST provided a copy of the script.

6 In researching this article, I attempted to contact four priests who had spoken publically about the black mass. Francis X. Clooney was the only one who responded.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joseph P. Laycock

Joseph P. Laycock is an associate professor of religious studies at Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas, USA. His recent books include The Seer of Bayside: Veronica Lueken and the Struggle to Define Catholicism (2014) and Dangerous Games: What the Moral Panic over Role-Playing Games Says about Play, Religion, and Imagined Worlds (2015). CORRESPONDENCE: Texas State University, Comal 102, 601 University Drive, San Marcos, Texas 78666-4684, USA.